METHODS
Chemo-naive patients who applied to the T.C. İstanbul Bilim
University Avrupa Florence Nightingale Hospital Medical
Oncology Clinic in the years 2009-2010 were taken into the
study. After physical examination, patients who did not have
any evidence of infection were eligible, they had a CRP test
and were given the EORTC QLQ-C30 (version 3.0) questionnaire
The same procedure was repeated at the third chemotherapy
cure . Measurement of CRP was done by the Cobas
Integra 400/800 machine with the turibidimetric (latex) method.
RESULTS
Study began with 57 patients, but 2 of them died before taking
the third chemotherapy dose. 36 advanced, 19 early stage, 25
female, 30 male, a total of 55 patient could complete the study.
6 patients had lung cancer, 9 patients had colon cancer, 15 patients
had breast cancer, 12 patients had stomach cancer, 1 patient
had liver cancer, 3 patients had bile duct cancer, 4 patients
had pancreatic cancer, 1 patient had bone cancer, 3 patients had
testicular cancer and 1 patient had neuro-endocrine tumor. The
average age of the advanced disease group was 55.7±11.7 while
the average of the early-stage group was 52.6±13. Between two
groups there wasn't any significant difference (p=0.370). The
CRP levels of progressed and non-progressed cases were compared.
Before chemotherapy (p=0.359) and after chemotherapy
(p=0.344) no significant difference was found. Also we could not determine a significant decrease in the CRP level of (p=0.907) and
(p=0.113) patients when we compared the crp levels before and
after chemotherapy. After the chemotherapy, there is a significant
improvement in the global health status (p=0.017), role functioning
(p=0.010), emotional functioning (p=0.00), social functioning
(p=0.043), and a significant decrease in the pain score (p=0.005).
CONCLUSION
Although we could not find significant decrease in the serum
CRP levels with chemotherapy, we found out a correlation between
high serum CRP levels and low quality of life. With this
result, we propose to evaluate the serum CRP level as a marker of
quality of life. But we need more patients and statistics to prove
that CRP is an independent variable as a marker of quality of life.
We found out a correlation between chemotherapy and quality of
life. The average QOL scores of the patients receiving chemotherapy
was increased. In contrast to popular belief, we can say
that, chemotherapy is not a factor that decreases quality of life,
especially within the first three cures.
Keywords: EORTC QLQ-C30; C-reactive protein; cancer; chemotherapy; life quality
